Zhejiang Provincial Museum 浙江省博物馆

Welcome, everyone, to the Zhijiang Branch of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. You're standing right now in the main entrance hall.

Take a moment to look up. The space is remarkably open and generously tall. The ceiling design draws its inspiration from the landscapes of Jiangnan, and the whole hall is filled with soft natural light that pours in through skylights above. The result is a space that feels both modern and calm — almost like walking into the first sweep of a long landscape scroll. This hall is also the branch's visitor services hub: if you need to store luggage, rent an audio guide, or ask about guided tour options, this is the place to do it.

Before we head into the galleries, let me give you a quick overview of today's route. We'll start on the ground floor and work our way up. First we'll visit the opening section of the "Zhejiang: Ten Thousand Years" permanent exhibition, covering prehistory through the Sui and Tang dynasties. After that, we'll move on to the celadon, maritime, and Song dynasty culture galleries. Then we'll go upstairs for the second half of the chronological exhibition, followed by the folk customs, notable figures, guqin art, and Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains galleries. The full tour takes roughly four to six hours. If you're pressed for time, feel free to prioritize whichever galleries interest you most.

A few housekeeping notes before we go in: please switch your phones to silent or vibrate mode, and please don't use flash photography inside the galleries. Eating and drinking are not permitted in the exhibition spaces — there are designated rest areas and a dining area in the museum where you can take a break and recharge. Alright, let's head in together and start with our first gallery.

We've now entered the first section of the "Zhejiang: Ten Thousand Years" permanent exhibition, covering prehistory through the Sui and Tang dynasties. This gallery traces the arc of human history in Zhejiang from the earliest known inhabitants all the way to the close of the Tang period.

As you walk in, you'll find yourself surrounded by some remarkably ancient objects. Zhejiang has an extraordinary prehistoric pedigree, rooted in three major cultures: Kuahuqiao, Hemudu, and Liangzhu. The Hemudu culture dates back around 7,000 years and is considered one of the most important early centers of rice cultivation in southern China. The bone spades on display here were the tools Hemudu farmers used to turn the soil for wet-rice farming. The Liangzhu culture is even more remarkable — it flourished around 5,000 years ago and stands as compelling evidence for China's long civilizational history. In 2009, the Liangzhu site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The jade cong and jade bi ritual objects excavated from Liangzhu sites are displayed here: exquisitely crafted, they speak to a highly organized society with sophisticated religious beliefs.

Moving further through the gallery, you'll encounter bronzes from the Yue state period, Han dynasty ceramics and lacquerware, and a range of objects from the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui, and Tang periods. During this long span of time, Zhejiang gradually transformed from a relatively peripheral region into a significant center of Chinese economic and cultural life. The Six Dynasties period was especially pivotal: as waves of conflict swept northern China, large numbers of people migrated south, opening up Jiangnan and laying the groundwork for Zhejiang's later flourishing.

As you explore this gallery, I especially recommend spending time with the Liangzhu jade display. Look closely at the intricate spirit-and-beast-face motifs carved into the jade cong — the lines are incredibly fine and precise. It's hard to imagine how craftspeople 5,000 years ago achieved such delicate work. These objects are far more than artworks: they are windows into the earliest chapters of Chinese civilization.

Welcome to "Secret Colors of Jiangnan — Zhejiang Celadon Culture Exhibition." This gallery is dedicated to Zhejiang's singular place in the history of Chinese ceramics — as the birthplace and enduring heartland of celadon.

There is a saying: "To understand the history of Chinese ceramics, look first to Zhejiang." As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, potters in this region were already producing primitive stoneware. By the Eastern Han dynasty, they had developed the first true mature celadon in China. The pieces around you display the characteristic celadon glaze: a cool jade-like blue-green that is quietly beautiful and deeply refined.

The undisputed highlight of this gallery is the Tang dynasty Yue ware known as secret-color porcelain, or "mi se" ware. The term "secret color" originally referred to a closely guarded glaze developed exclusively for the imperial court — its precise formula was too precious to share. The Tang poet Lu Guimeng captured its beauty in verse: the glaze, he wrote, had captured the color of a thousand hilltops after an autumn rain. Looking at the bowls, plates, and vases on display — their fine-grained bodies and luminous blue-green surfaces — it's easy to understand why this ware was treated as something almost too beautiful for ordinary eyes.

Beyond the Yue ware, the gallery moves into the celadons of the Song dynasty, particularly the Longquan kilns and the Southern Song Imperial Kilns. The Song period was the apex of Chinese ceramic art. Longquan's signature glazes — a delicate pale blue-green and a richer plum-green — have the warm, smooth quality of fine jade. The Southern Song Imperial Kiln pieces are celebrated for their crackled glaze and the characteristic purple mouth and iron foot of the exposed clay at rim and base. These wares were not only treasured within China; enormous quantities were exported via the Maritime Silk Road to Japan, the Korean peninsula, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, shaping the course of ceramic art history well beyond China's borders.

As you move through the gallery, pay attention to the shifts in glaze color and vessel form across different kilns and eras. They reflect centuries of Chinese potters pursuing an aesthetic ideal they described as "blue sky breaking through clouds after rain."

We've arrived now at "Eastward to the Sea — Zhejiang Maritime Culture Exhibition." Zhejiang is a province of mountains, rivers, and coastline, and the sea has always been central to its identity.

This gallery draws primarily on artifacts and reconstructed scenes from the coastal regions of Ningbo, Zhoushan, and Taizhou to tell the story of a people who built their lives facing the ocean. Zhejiang's coastline is long and deeply indented, dotted with sheltered bays and natural harbors. From very early on, it served as one of China's most important gateways to maritime trade. By the Tang and Song dynasties, the port of Ningbo was already a major international hub, dispatching cargoes of Chinese porcelain, tea, and silk to Japan, the Korean peninsula, Southeast Asia, and the ports of the Indian Ocean — a network we know today as the Maritime Silk Road.

The ship models, navigational compasses, trade ceramics, and harbor-site artifacts on display here vividly reconstruct the energy and scale of that maritime world. Some of the ceramics were recovered from ancient shipwrecks: after centuries on the ocean floor, their glazes remain brilliantly intact, offering a remarkable glimpse of the reach and ambition of historic long-distance trade.

But Zhejiang's maritime culture was never just about trade. This gallery also covers fishing, shipbuilding, and the everyday customs of coastal communities. Fishing-boat models, nets, shell objects, and scenes of coastal domestic life show how generation after generation made their living from and alongside the sea. Into the modern era, Zhejiang continued to play a leading role: Ningbo and Wenzhou were among the first Chinese cities to open to foreign trade, and they remain key figures in the story of China's modern maritime history.

This gallery is particularly rewarding for anyone with an interest in seafaring or trade history. It reveals a side of Zhejiang that balances the province's reputation for gentle waterways and cultivated refinement: a spirit of openness, ambition, and the courage to cast off toward the horizon.

Welcome to the Song Yun Cultural Exhibition. If you had to name the single most defining chapter in Zhejiang's cultural history, many people would point to the Song dynasty — and in particular the Southern Song period, when Zhejiang, and especially Hangzhou, became one of the great centers of Chinese political, economic, and cultural life.

After the fall of the Northern Song, Emperor Gaozong crossed the Yangtze River and eventually established his new capital at Lin'an — modern-day Hangzhou. From that moment, the Jiangnan region entered one of the most brilliant periods in its history. What we call "Song Yun" — literally the rhythm or spirit of the Song — refers to the distinctive cultural character that took shape during this era: refined, elegant, intellectually open, and deeply invested in the pleasures of daily life. That spirit left a lasting imprint on Zhejiang, and on Chinese aesthetic sensibility as a whole, that can still be felt today.

In this gallery you'll find Song dynasty calligraphy, paintings, porcelain, gold and silver ware, clothing, and scholars' studio objects. Song-period porcelain favored an understated purity: two of the famed Five Great Kilns — the Imperial Kiln and the Ge Kiln — had their roots in Zhejiang. Song painting and calligraphy prized atmosphere and expressive brushwork over literal description; many of the canonical works in that tradition were created in this period or bear its deep influence.

Beyond the artifacts, the gallery uses reconstructed scenes to bring Song dynasty life back to life. You can see how Song people prepared and drank tea — the bowls and pots they used — and explore how a Song scholar's studio might have looked and felt. The Four Refined Pursuits of the Song literati — burning incense, whisking tea, hanging a scroll, and arranging flowers — are all represented here, and they speak to a vision of everyday life as an art form. The commercial energy of the Song world also makes an appearance: Song-era Zhejiang was one of the most economically dynamic regions anywhere in the world at the time.

Song Yun is not only a matter of historical memory. Its influence flows through Hangzhou's contemporary character and through the way Zhejiang people still think about beauty and the good life. I hope this gallery gives you a sense of how, a thousand years ago, the people of the Song era found a way to turn ordinary days into something that felt, at its best, like poetry.

We've now entered the second half of the "Zhejiang: Ten Thousand Years" permanent exhibition, which covers the Five Dynasties period through to the end of the Qing dynasty. This gallery picks up where the first section left off, tracing the transformations that shaped Zhejiang over the following thousand years.

The Five Dynasties period was a time of fragmentation across much of China, but in Zhejiang, the Wuyue Kingdom offered an island of comparative stability. Its founder, Qian Liu, governed with a pragmatic philosophy — keep the borders secure, keep the people at peace. He built sea walls along the Qiantang River, managed waterways, and encouraged agriculture and commerce. The prosperity that Zhejiang maintained through this turbulent era had everything to do with Qian Liu's long-sighted stewardship. The sections of this gallery dedicated to Wuyue and its engineering achievements — particularly the coastal defenses — are well worth your time.

With the Southern Song came Zhejiang's golden age. When the court established its capital at Lin'an — today's Hangzhou — the province moved to the very center of the Chinese world. Cities thrived, trade flourished, and an extraordinary concentration of literary, artistic, and intellectual talent gathered in the region. The Southern Song artifacts on display here — porcelain, paintings, silks, and scenes of urban life — convey the brilliance of that period with remarkable immediacy.

The Ming and Qing periods saw Zhejiang maintain its position as one of China's most culturally and economically productive regions. Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, and Jiaxing were all centers of silk production, tea culture, ceramic trade, and scholarly life. Zhejiang produced more successful candidates in the imperial civil examinations than almost any other province, and the gallery's Ming and Qing holdings — local historical documents, genealogical records, examination papers, and trade goods — reflect that richness.

Working through this gallery in roughly chronological order, you can trace how Zhejiang moved from the careful stability of the Five Dynasties, through the peak of the Song, and on into the sustained prosperity of the Ming and Qing. Understanding this sequence is also the best way to make sense of the cultural and economic vitality that Zhejiang is known for today.

Our next stop is one of the most visually striking galleries in the museum: "Red Bridal Splendor — Traditional Wedding Customs and Trousseau of the Ning-Shao Plain." This exhibition focuses on the traditional wedding culture of the Ningbo and Shaoxing region and, above all, on the dazzling bridal tradition known as the "Scarlet Wedding Procession."

What exactly is a "Scarlet Wedding Procession"? In wealthy families of the Ning-Shao Plain, a daughter's wedding trousseau was an occasion for extraordinary display. Every piece — furniture, trunks and boxes, everyday household objects, even the bridal bed and the wedding palanquin — was lacquered in brilliant red and decorated with gold-leaf designs. On the wedding day, all of this was carried through the streets in a procession that could stretch for several li — sometimes as much as five kilometres. The sheer scale and splendor of the display was a public statement of the family's means, but it was also a heartfelt expression of all the wishes and hopes the family was sending with their daughter into her new life.

The objects filling this gallery are extraordinary. There are wedding palanquins with carved and gilded exteriors, intricate bridal beds, stacked lacquered trunks, tin ware, porcelain, and all manner of embroidered textiles. Every piece is finely made, and the imagery carved or painted on each object carries auspicious meaning: dragons and phoenixes, blooming flowers, symbols of abundance and good fortune. I particularly recommend looking closely at the wedding palanquins on display. Some of these weigh several hundred kilograms and required eight carriers to move. Their surfaces are covered in hundreds of carved human figures depicting historical stories and legends. The most elaborate examples are known as "ten-thousand-labor palanquins" — the name reflects the belief that a single palanquin of this kind required ten thousand hours of skilled work to complete.

Through these objects, you can both admire the extraordinary craftsmanship of Zhejiang's folk artisans and gain insight into how traditional society understood marriage, family, and the hopes placed on a new household. The form of weddings has changed enormously since these traditions flourished, but the longing for beauty and happiness that these objects embody is something that resonates across time.

One last note: this is a popular gallery for photography, and the vivid colors make for wonderful images. Please just remember to keep your flash switched off — the lacquer and textile pieces are sensitive to light.

We've now arrived at "Protecting the People: Qian Liu — Zhejiang Notable Figures Cultural Series." This gallery centers on Qian Liu, the founder of the Wuyue Kingdom, and on the remarkable mark he left on the land he ruled.

Qian Liu lived through the turbulent final years of the Tang dynasty and the Five Dynasties period that followed. In 907, he was formally recognized as the King of Wuyue. In an era defined by warlords competing for territory, Qian Liu chose a different path. Rather than seeking to expand his domain by force, he governed by what he called the principle of "protecting the borders and keeping the people at peace." He organized the construction of sea walls to tame the fearsome tidal surges of the Qiantang River, oversaw extensive irrigation works, and actively promoted agriculture and trade. Under his leadership, the Wuyue Kingdom became one of the most stable and prosperous territories in a fractured and violent age.

The Qiantang River's tidal bore is one of the most powerful natural forces in China — you may well have heard of it. Historically, these tides repeatedly caused devastating floods around Hangzhou and the surrounding farmland. Qian Liu mobilized soldiers and civilians together to build a stone sea wall that brought the flooding under control. This was not only an immediate lifesaver for the people of the time; it also helped create the conditions that would later allow Hangzhou to serve as the Southern Song capital. The gallery includes scale models and illustrated panels explaining the engineering of these defenses, which offer a fascinating look at how ancient China engaged with and reshaped the natural world.

After Qian Liu's death, his descendants continued to govern Wuyue. In the early years of the Northern Song dynasty, rather than resist absorption by force, they peacefully handed their territory over to the Song court — sparing Zhejiang the devastation of military conquest and preserving the wellbeing of the people they had always sought to protect. The Qian clan also had a deep commitment to learning and education. Their descendants made extraordinary contributions to modern China: the twentieth century alone produced Qian Xuesen, the pioneering aerospace engineer; Qian Weichang, the physicist; and Qian Zhongshu, the novelist and literary scholar — a legacy shaped by the family's celebrated guiding principles, known as the Qian Family Maxims.

Through this gallery, you can see how one leader's wise and patient governance created long-lasting prosperity for an entire region — and explore the deep traditions of intellectual and cultural achievement that Zhejiang has nurtured across many centuries.

Welcome to "Ancient Sounds — Guqin Art Gallery." The guqin is among the oldest and most culturally significant instruments in China, recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Zhejiang — and especially the Zhe School of guqin — has occupied an important place in the instrument's long history.

The guqin has seven strings and a beautifully austere silhouette. Its tone is quiet, deep, and resonant in a way that carries great distance without ever being loud. More than a musical instrument, the guqin was, for China's classical literati, a tool for self-cultivation and self-expression — a means of putting inner life into sound. Classical texts held that a cultivated person should always keep a guqin and se nearby; playing and listening to the guqin was among the most valued activities at a literati gathering.

In this gallery, you'll find historic guqin instruments from various dynasties alongside musical scores, instrument cases, and associated objects. Lighting and audio technology throughout the space are used to illuminate the instrument's forms, tonal qualities, and performance aesthetics in a way that engages the senses as well as the intellect. The Zhe School of guqin emerged during the Southern Song period; its most celebrated representative was Guo Mian, whose composition Mist and Clouds over the Xiang River and Lake Dongting remains one of the best-known works in the guqin repertoire. The Zhe School is admired for playing that is fluid and natural on the surface, yet deeply contemplative and emotionally resonant beneath.

The gallery's multimedia installations play recordings and video of historic guqin performances. I encourage you to find a quiet moment here and just listen. Let the instrument's ancient, unhurried voice wash over you, and try to enter the mood the classical poets described — sitting alone in a bamboo grove, playing the qin and calling out into the dusk. If you have any love for traditional music, this is a gallery where the world slows down in the best possible way.

Beyond listening and looking, the gallery also explains the guqin's construction, its materials, and the fundamentals of how it is played. Every plank of wood and every string carries the accumulated thinking and aesthetic judgment of many generations of makers and players. I hope that by the time you leave this gallery, you'll have a new appreciation for this ancient art form — and perhaps the beginning of a lasting interest in it.

Our final gallery today is the Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains Hall. This space is built around Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, the masterpiece landscape scroll painted by the Yuan dynasty artist Huang Gongwang, and it is one of the most visually striking and technically ambitious spaces in the entire Zhijiang Branch.

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is widely regarded as the supreme achievement of Chinese landscape painting. Huang Gongwang spent many years creating this long handscroll in the later stages of his life. It depicts the mountains and rivers along the Fuchun River in Zhejiang — rolling peaks, a broad and tranquil river, stands of dense trees — all rendered in ink with a quality of stillness and clarity that feels almost meditative. Since its creation, the scroll has been treasured and celebrated without interruption. But its history is not without drama. In the late Ming dynasty, a devoted collector ordered that the painting be burned alongside him at his death, wishing to take it with him into the afterlife. Servants managed to pull the scroll from the flames in time — but not before it had been split into two sections. The longer section eventually made its way to Taiwan and is now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, known as the "Wuyong Master" scroll. The shorter section remained in Zhejiang and is now held by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, under the name "Remnant Mountain." The two halves have been displayed together only once. For many, their continued separation carries a particular poignancy.

In this hall, you may have the opportunity to view the "Remnant Mountain" section of the original scroll — please check the current schedule on site, as specific arrangements may vary. Alongside the original, the hall uses large-scale digital projection and an immersive theater to allow visitors to step inside the painting. In the digital installation, the figures, boats, mist, and trees of the scroll begin to move; the light shifts through the hours and the seasons. Standing in the space, you can feel as though you are on the bank of the Fuchun River itself, watching the landscape breathe.

This hall is also one of the museum's most popular photography spots. The digital projection creates a beautiful backdrop for group photos. As always, please keep flash switched off, and please don't touch the screens or projection equipment.

Dear visitors, that brings our tour of the Zhijiang Branch of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum to a close. In a few hours together, we have traveled across ten thousand years of Zhejiang's history — from prehistoric jade and celadon, through the elegance of the Song dynasty, and on to the boundless landscape of a great painting. I hope this visit has deepened your sense of this extraordinary place and the culture it has produced. You are very welcome to return to Hangzhou and to the Zhijiang Branch anytime to discover more. Safe travels, everyone, and enjoy the rest of your time in Zhejiang.